more than 80% of them return to a private residence. that is a pretty good success rate. the nearly 4,000 people who entered transitional living programs more than 85% accepted

to a safe living situation, but we also recognize that the young women and-- men and women's need to go beyond housing and housing does not merely satisfy what is going on and that is why we are funding neighborhood mentoring programs there are substance abuse and mental health services administration. we provide evidence based services to homeless youth struggling with behavioral health disorders. that is why we fund the john f. chaffee foster care independence program which helped young men and women in foster care get a strong start for the rest of their lives, and it is why the centers for disease control and prevention support groups like the national network for youth that promotes healthy sexual behaviors. we are working hard to implement the new 110 million-dollar teen pregnancy initiative-- [applause] it is important.

science-based programs, evidence based, medically accurate programs that have been shown to reduce teen pregnancy and the want to partner with you on those efforts. we know we can help young women choose other opportunities and it is why we are also going to make sure that every american child and adolescent gets the health care they need. you know, one of the first bill signed into law by president obama was there reauthorization of the children's health insurance program, and it expanded coverage to an additional 4 million young americans who now are eligible for the program but one of the challenges is that we know that there are about 5 million kids in america who were eligible for either medicaid or schip and or not signed up, and part of the

effort that is underway is $100 million national and local outreach program to try and find the already eligible but not enrolls children and we need your help to do that. there are kids right now who are eligible for preventive care, eligible for outreach care, eligible for mental care and they are simply not enrolled in these programs so that effort is one that we are going to take very very seriously and frankly needs to be, the out rege needs to be done at the national and local level. so, we would really appreciate your help with that our reach. two principles are the leading principles of the work that we do in this area. the importance of involving families and the importance of involving young people themselves. now i know the families that you deal with often are challenging. they are not often the ideal

that are presented on some tv talk show, but the best evidence that we have says that any intervention that is successful with children is much more effective when families are involved. we also share the national network for youth's believe that people who have the best ideas about how to deal with young americans are young americans, our peers and friends. we have a program called youth move, which is short for motivating others through voices of experience in be print together young people who have real life experience dealing with our juvenile justice system, our mental health system and our child welfare system and having successfully navigated the systems themselves, they serve as role models for other young people and advocates for incorporating youth and put into the public policy that we make.

we think it has been an effective strategy and want to really accelerate those pipelines. so part of the reason i was really glad to have a chance to join you all this morning is i knew there were going to be a lot of young leaders here in the room in the audience and i would like you all to stand up and let us recognize you, all the youth who are here today. [applause] come on. those of you who are young or think of yourselves as young. you get to stand up. you get to stand up. [applause] i just want to encourage you to keep doing what you are doing. you might get frustrated. you might think that your voices aren't being heard but i can tell you even in a large department like ours, the input is absolutely critical and meaningful and essential. it helps us do a better job with

our work, so there are lots of meetings and i know that you are going to. not all of them are really fun. maybe not all of them are even interesting but they are important, and you to make a huge difference. so, i have talked a little bit today about the range of needs and, that runaways and young people face in the range of services that are department provides and i know a lot of you in this audience were multiple hats. you serve as advocates, as caretakers, as real estate agents and career counselors all at the same time. but just because all of the services are available doesn't mean that young people automatically get connected with the services they need. so, if there is one thing we can think about doing even better it is making sure that the departments and agencies and programs work together so that we all serve the full needs of

these young men and by men who come to us for help. i can tell you, it is an effort that the president is very, very focused on. he has made it very clear to those of us serving in his cabinet that he not only wants us to do the best job we possibly can running our own agencies but feels that it is a wasted opportunity if we are not leveraging our assets with our allies the iraq government so there is a lot of very exciting interagency work going on. i work on a very regular basis with everybody from the attorney general to the secretary of education and housing and urban development secretary in ways that really have never happened before. everybody in our agency acknowledges that. while there has always been some talk about this kind of collaborative effort it really has never been systemically approached and it is a

commitment that we are making throughout the government. so we have interdepartmental partnerships their interagency council on homelessness which many of you are working on and are familiar with. to the juvenile justice coordinating council which actually meets later today, through various interagency working groups on youths that meet on a regular basis and we are doing what we can to make sure that we are not just sitting around the room and chatting about what everybody is doing but really looking for services in ways that we can leverage assets. let me just give you one small example. shaun donovan, the new housing and urban development director recognizes that he has the housing piece of the puzzle, but often the way that the funds are organized that the community level, he doesn't have the leverage to bring services to where the housing in its.

we do. we actually can have that as a criteria so one of the things we are doing working together is beginning to organize at the local level, insisting that anyone who is going to apply for health and human services funding and some of our mental health programs and some of our outreach programs must be in a collaborative counselor at the local level what housing at the table because it is one way we can ensure that if we build housing, then we will have a service fees connected with that and that is a much better chance for success then if they are separated apart, and those kinds of conversations are going on right now throughout government. again, we would love your input and your ideas because you are on the ground with the heavy lifton know where the gaps are and know where we might be able to leverage those services to come together. we are committed to working as

good partners and we want to make sure that we are helping this strategy of the no wrongdoer approach, the holistic notion that wherever a child or young adults may enter the system, wherever they a rai for help, that whoever they see knows what all is available and we are asking the right question. any time we see somebody we should be asking, are you signed up for health insurance and if not assisting in the process. do you need drug counseling? can they benefit from having a mentor, of looking at the various pieces of the puzzle and bringing them all together so that we provide that range of support. so that is really our plan in the coming months not only to continue running the programs within their agency but to run the leveraged programs across government and then to reach down and work in close partnership and collaboration with those of you in the

community. again. i want to thank you for the incredible work you do in these very, very challenging times. we are going to have a chance to highlight the work of one young person who is here today. he is someone who has had a lot of experience in the not-for-profit world. he started his own foundation. he is equally well-known among some washington powerbrokers and in communities across the country. talking about zack bonner who is here at the head table. he is actually the main attraction here this morning. i am just here is the warm-up act but i like many of you have read about zack had been inspired by his story. like many of you i know one of his latest efforts is walking across the country to draw attention to homelessness and runaway youth. now i am a little disappointed

zack that you are taking the southern roots and by passing my home state of kansas, but you know, we wish you luck anyway. and we wanted to give you some supplies so i have here a little supply kit for you. we have a water bottle and they put some of their and a few things to help you in your journey. it is from the office of the secretary. [applause] i know zack is also a prolific twitter and blogger. i don't tweet myself which is probably a really good idea but i do's blogs from time to time and would love zack, if you have a chance to periodically posted blog on their web sites so we can advertise your good work

throughout our network. we wish you good luck and look forward to having you back here. part of what makes zack work so important is his message. another part is his example. it reminds us that all of our young people are capable of doing extraordinary things if they have a loving home and get the right support from caring adults. not everyone is going to walk across the country. but all of our children have the extraordinary talents, and some of them understand that those talents don't disappear just because they don't have a home. it just takes additional steps to get them some help and support to reach their dreams and goals. so thank you again for your hard work and thank you for meeting and figuring out better strategies to reach these youth

and as secretary of health and human services i look forward lending our assets of our agency in partnership to the work that is going on the run the country. thanks so much. [applause] [applause] >> good morning everybody. how are you this morning? good. secretary sebelius had to rush off but i certainly want to thank her for her time this morning, for her comments and spending time with us when

there's so much going on in the world and did her world, spending time as the professionals who work with runaway homeless and disadvantaged young people. we appreciate your time and all the things that she had to say to us. i am lori jackson, the associate executive director in kansas city and i am one of the co-chairs of this symposium and i want to welcome you here. 35 years, who would have thought, 35 years? and whether we are meeting at h4h camp or whether we are meeting here at this hotel it is always a joy to be here and always a joy to get together and network with other professionals who do what we do and do the work that we do when to hang out with some phenomenal young people so again give yourselves a round of applause for being here. i know it is a tough time economically. [applause] i also want to take this opportunity to thank dr. bob grummond and his staff who were instrumental in helping us get

secretary sebelius here so i know he is here. he waved his hand. thank you so much. we appreciate it. [applause] the symposium promises to be fabulous and haven't we had a great start? there are people in the city going how did they get her, and we think we are pretty cool because we did. there will be many opportunities for all of you in the next few days. opportunities to learn and to grow with you are a first-time attendee. phyllis here for the first time? excellent. [applause] or opportunities whether you are a die-hard attendee. who has been here five, ten, 20? who has been to the 4-h camp? nevermind, that is a different story. opportunities to learn from presenters and exhibit tears and most importantly opportunities to learn just from each other. so we want you to make sure that you take the time to get to know this people that you don't know

or you haven't seen as well as reconnect with people that you have met before. i have too many papers. i want to take this opportunity to also encourage you to share the message. it is important that we continue to talk about why we are here and the work that we do. it is important that you go to the hill in share of the message, because we are the people that do with the best. we need to tell our story. we need to tell our agency stories. we need to tell the stories of the young people and the families we work with because if we don't we could very well be left with nothing. it is important not only to let congress hear stories but to know that we need additional funding and we need additional resources and if we don't do it nobody else is going to come so make sure that you take the opportunity to share the

message, to make your connections to go to the hill and to be heard, because it is in valuable. in speaking of sharing the message, i would like to introduce someone who works on our behalf in washington. she is a great supporter of the work we do in this field. debbie policies susac commissioner for the family and youth services barrow. most recently before arriving at phys the middle was the director of technical assistance that the childcare pero office of family assistance. in this capacity she provided leadership in addition to a network of federal contractor staff to plan and design technical assistance and professional development services targeted to meet the needs of state territory in tribal administrators for the shucker development fund block grant. as the former director of the office of discretionary grants at the office of community services, ms. paul provided leadership for the discretionary community-based grant programs focused on providing economic

development support for the low-income neighborhoods and individuals that the community economic development program for low-income program the national youth sports program and the rural community facilities program. in the positions of office director, deputy director and special assistant to the commissioner of the administration will on developmental disability she served as the principle adviser to the commissioner. she is the principle, she was the principle responsible for the management of 170 million-dollar budget for state local and university discretionary grant programs to develop and provide comprehensive integrated service systems to support the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. ms. powell held leadership physicians ndn hell jefferson centers for medicare and medicaid services. wow, that is a lot. please join me in welcoming debbie powell. [applause]

>> thank you very much lori for that warm introduction. i really that old. i have had just short stents everywhere. i want to thank the national network for you for inviting me to participate in this symposium this year. it gives me an opportunity to its thank you for all the work that you do and the pleasure of meeting many of you, because at thisbe we know that you were the people that keep the trains running without all of the excellent services you provide, our program would be merely legislation. so i asked and i accepted the opportunity to come in introduce myself today because there has been a change in leadership and i want you to see my face and to thank publicly the director now of the runaway homan youth program, curtis porter for the wonderful leader mackey has

provided at fisbe for several years. curtis, stand up. [applause] i have to say that because i have bennett fisbe for a year and i was hired there is the deputy associate commissioner and curtis was the acting associate commissioner and he has been so supportive of me through this whole year while i took the time to learn this stuff, learn the programs and understand the need of the programs that fisbe fun so why have to openly thank you for being the support of manager that you were and now being the support of director of the program that you are. i also want to take an opportunity so you can see some of the staff that has participated today. they are our nn4y step. these are the people you probably speak to often vet may not see their faces so these our

r r h why and ncp staff. [applause] i am not going to stay before you long because i know the star here today is zack and you want to hear zack's presentation as well as get going into your sessions. i am excited about having the opportunity to participate, to learn, to hear some of the emerging issues for your programs hear some of the promising practices and some of the innovative strategies that you were using on the ground to administer your community-based programs so i'm really excited about being here and learning as much as you are learning. i also want to commend our young people here today and as secretary sebelius said oftentimes what you may hear is not very exciting for you and you may not even want to be there but you don't know how important is for you to be a part of the planning of our programs because without you we can't do this effectively.

your ideas are but galvanize the staff to continue doing what they do so i'm not going to stay here and keep talking yaki because you were going to hear that for the next three days. i just want to thank you for the excellent work you do and to know and never doubt fisbe appreciates your work. we know that your are extension so thank you very much and i want to ask you to take an opportunity to look at our web site to look at our mentoring grantees that are on the web sites because as the secretary's said we at the fackrell arm are getting it. we get it that we have deleverages services. we have dwindling federal resources in the way of money but if the look across our programs and see what we have natural collaboration bencor adnation opportunities you can leverage so i would ask you to support our mentoring program and look and see if you have the mentoring grant in your community and please connect your young people that can use those services with those

programs. we really appreciate you helping us get it because you have been doing it for a very long time. we have been asking you to partner and collaborate in coordinated and now we want to mirror what you are doing and we are asking for your help to get rights a thank you very much enjoyed the symposium. [applause] >> it is my true pleasure to introduce whom you have for a lot of fact, zack bonner. for somebody who is in the sixth grade, he has quite the reza may. he was born in arkansas but is now living near me in the tampa bay area. he is a student of florida virtual academy. zack started doing community service in 2004 after hurricane charlie hit florida. in 2005, he formed the little red wagon foundation, a

non-profit organization designed to help underprivileged children. zack makes backpacks for homeless in st. kitts and tax them with food and supplies. diesta jubah to 2,000 so far across the country. zack also helps kids in title i schools by providing supplies, books and candy for teachers. the products are distributed by teaching tools for the county school system. for the past three years zack has been helping kids at the renaissance the village and a smaller fema trailer parks and baker, louisiana. he has donated $8,000 in toys, sporting equipment and books. he has also held a holiday party in 2006 and 2007 for kids providing each with a toy and gift bag and providing their families with a ham provided by smith boots. for the past four years zack wanting to get the other kids

involved in the community service and draw attention he started an ad that call 24 hours. this event brings together kids from across florida for 24 hours to stimulate being homeless for 24 hours raising funds, supplies and awareness. in november of 2007 zack walks 280 miles from tampa to tallahassee in order to bring awareness during the first-ever homeless youth awareness month. in 2008 he set out again from telehasim to it wannstedt to once again draw attention to the homeless and raise money to build a home through habitat for humanity for homeless families. in the summer of 2009, issac completed his law from his house to the white house. he believes that we all have the ability to make changes in this world if we just try. so as was mentioned earlier in 2010, zack is planning a coast to coast walk in which he will

involve other youth and help fund their ideas to help homeless young people. please welcome zachary bonner. he is an amazing and dedicated youth. zack. [applause] >> i would like to start out by just saying thank you for allowing me to be a part of the symposium. leneigh asked me to come and speak to you all i was really honored. i think one of the things that is impressed and inspired me the most over the past five and half years of the people i have met in the french at some partnerships i developed with other organizations that share my desire to help underprivileged youth. in august of 2005 hurricane katrina hit and within a few months i had been through

renaissance village, fema's largesse trailer park to times. i had seen the conditions these kids were living in. i played with them, brought them supplies, toys, books and food but at the end of the day i could walk away and they could not. they were stuck in the compound with barbed wire fence, men standing at the gate with automatic rifles, drugs and prostitution all around them. a situation that most of the general public would never see. this left a mark on me and now whenever i feel frustrated i think back to those kids that cannot walk away and the awful situation they were in. it was those kids and all the kids since than that i decided, it was those kids that inspired me to do my first walk from tampa to tallahassee. although the only plan to go from my house to capital of

florida, during the walk isoc it through my walk that i could bring a lot of awareness not only to homeless youth but to the individual organizations along the way. in the communities i was walking through homeless-- use homelessness advocates would embrace my what can use me to bring awareness not only to the problem of the homelessness in their community but also to the work they were doing. this april, i will continue my walk from tampa to los angeles to bring awareness to youth homelessness. i want to invite all of you to review my route and see if i am walking through your community and if i am contact us to see how we can partner together.

i have to believe for self-preservation that the only reason that this problem exists is for lack of knowledge because if everybody understood why these kids were homeless, that they are not homeless because they want to be or because they are not willing to follow the rules at home but because the situations are out of their control, if the people of america understood this then this problem would not exist because we as a society would not allow it. i believe we have to get the leaders of this country to look past the statistics of youth homelessness. and to realize that behind each number is a real kid with a name, a face in their own unique story. some of you may have heard me use this analogy before but i feel it is more-- when we can all relate to. i live in constant fear of my mom sing my room because i know is in the she-she will make me clean it.

i always read it because i looked at it and i think it is too big of them as to never be able to get clean. toys sticking out and not put up, closed run everywhere so i shut the door and held by some miracle it will go away. but it never does and eventually i have to face my room and i have to clean it. it always starts the same. i stand in star for the longest, and think to myself how will i ever be able to get this cleaned but eventually i just take it then start in one spot and go from spot by spot, little by little and eventually i looked up in my room is clean. i look at used homelessness much the same way. right now is a huge problem but if we work together in our own corners of the world, we can solve this crisis. i want to close by saying thank you to you all for the work you are doing. i know that sometimes you feel frustrated and you just want to shut the door.

but just remember the work that you are doing is making a difference. together we will get this crisis all. we have to. we have over 1.3 humus-- homeless youth depending on us. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> zack has agreed to take some questions that folks have any of those. there are mics in the crowd if you are interested in asking any questions, that would be great.

anybody. do you want to step on over to that mic, if you would. >> i don't have a question but i want to let you know that you are really awesome and i am really inspired by what you are doing. thank you. [applause] >> do we have contact information for people that want to log on and a lot of young people and other agencies using electronic media to keep track of some of the things like this. do you have any of that we campos during symposium so we can spread the word about the waukee were going to do? the contact information? yeah. we have a web site that we have if you want to continue, if you want to talk to us. we can get that to you. >> and then i would be happy to

come down and help clean your room any time. [laughter] >> actually, the web site is www.little red wagon foundation.com or you can go to al r.w..org. >> my name is billy from services from california and it think what you are doing is amazing. a man outreach worker and you are just amazing, fantastic. [applause] >> anybody else? thank you. [applause] >> zack hyundai have a different type thing going on. i want to thank you zack for all you do. you truly are amazing and an

inspiration to all of us and we are very excited about your journey and we wish you luck on your journey and know that we have supported you last year when you walked. good luck and we are anxious to hear about how it goes.

>> now a news conference with british prime minister gordon brown. he took questions on afghanistan and the economy. this is about an hour and ten minutes. >> good morning. i want to bring you up first of all to date with the events that are happening this week. these are important days and this afternoon i will be visiting the islands and as events unfold this week i believe will be a critical week of decisions for northern ireland. and on thursday the world comes together in london to unite against the global terrorist threat. our conference on afghanistan, the london conference will be

attended by president karzai the u.n. secretary general vana and 60 nations will be represented. we will be announcing new figures for nato forces and for afghan forces in the time to come. and we will be focusing on how the political and civilian surge that we plan in afghanistan can match and complement the military service that is taking place. on wednesday, the day before the first international meeting will be held to agree how we can strengthen support for yemen in its efforts against al qaeda and how we can help the government of yemen with the development and governance. as i said last week in a common statement i made on security, we know that there are terrorist groups with plans to hinchliffe damage on our country and we are always on alert. we will be vigilant against those who seek to destroy and undermine our democracy and our way of life. let me add one thing also at this morning.

i sent my condolences to president harari and prime minister mellis after the crash of the ethiopian airways flight on the coast of lebanon and we are working urgently to establish whether any of our citizens were on board. now this morning i want to say something about the economy and the next stages for britain. i am confident that the u.k. economy is emerging from recession but there are dangerous global forces, a volatile oil prices, financial market uncertainties, and balances, protectionist threats, which means the world and the u.k. economy remain fragile and policymakers around the world and in the united kingdom must remain vigilant. that is why we are all agreed around the world that we must reduce our deficits steadily according to our plan but that

we must do nothing this year which would put recovery growth in jobs at risk here in britain and in every other country. this is the view of all major leaders and it is the view of the international monetary fund. just as we were right to intervene to stop collapsing banks from destroying the economy and just as we were right to bring support to avoid recession turning into depression so it is right now that we do what is necessary to ensure we lock in recovery over the course of 2010. the biggest mistake the world could make would be to turn at a time of stress to protectionism. the biggest mistake we in britain and individual countries can make would be to withdraw now from the support of the actions we need for growth and jobs. that is why today we are not reducing but stepping up our action against unemployment. from today, there will be no

young person left on unemployment benefit for the long term in britain. 100,000 young people are today eligible for the new offer we are making of a job for a replacement for training and each one has a choice to take what is on offer or ultimately lose their financial benefits. and today i am urging every unemployed person to take up this unique opportunity that is available from today to prove themselves and to improve themselves. this morning i have been meeting business leaders signed up on the campaign to avoid any repetition of the '80s lost generation went to many young people were written off. i think it is fair to say that there will be few countries to have done more at any time to prevent youth unemployment rising. and already in addition to today's announcement we have secured more than 100,000 opportunities for young people to show what they can do and go for the next 15 months under the new young persons guarantee there will be a further 470,000

jobs and training opportunities for young people. these implement measures for young people are in part financed by the revenue from the bank bonus. now britain is too big a country to settle for small inventions and i want us in the next five years to be the world leaders in the new industries and new technologies of the global economy and with the highly skilled workforce that is the envy of the world so the coming election will be about those big challenges facing the country. the central choice will be who offers the best prospects for future jobs and family prosperity. the biggest employment push for young people in the country has ever seen reflects our determination to avoid jobless growth and achieve job rich growth. our plans will expound the middle class is not to squeeze them by building a job bridge prosperity not resigning the country to an age of this darity and this will be the driving purpose of the government over

this next period because i know this is the difference between success and failure for our country in the coming decades. so the next two months we will publish their plans to promote the low-carbon digital biotechnology defense manufacturing and greed of the industries where britain will lead the world and which will create jobs and growth for the future. tomorrow we will announce the first targeted investment fund, 125 million innovation fun for green and cleaned type businesses and it has been swiftly supported by private investors despite these tough times and the new types of jobs that these offer will require much greater levels of skill. within a decade 90% of all new jobs will need skills, so we have a plan to unleash a new wave of social mobility in our country. and we will announce plans to reshape the government to meet these ambitious plans at a later stage. these plans will take head on our determination to half our

deficit by 2014 including cuts and low priority areas, all the time putting the frontline first in protecting these services on which families rely, schools, children centers, police and the nhs. if the revenues exceed our additional cost of an estimated 550 million deponents tax will also help further reduce the deficit. in the next few weeks we will announce a new five-year plan for public services that bullen share the policing in schools are better tailored to individual needs responding to personal desires and aspirations. so, just as we have had a plan for dealing with the recession so to you can see that today we have plans for driving forward recovery, a plan for creating new industries and the new jobs of the future. and i'm happy now to take questions from people. adam. >> prime minister is you know

the conservative leaders have been saying that there is a need for action to cut the deficit this year. and suggesting i think not pushing aside suggestions that the implication of this is tens of billions of pounds worth of cuts and tax rises. are you really saying to the british people that you can turn things around only by what you cut in low priority areas and that the pain will be played another 12 months? >> that you i'm expressing today, that the coming from the international monetary fund and from other leaders and it is if you withdraw the stimulus to quickly then you risk a period where you put the recovery at risk. there is no doubt that is the view of the rest of the world. it is certainly my view and that is why we are stepping up our action against youth unemployment today. it also seems to be the view of the conservative party judging

from an interview on a day ago. is no use it try to win chronic points by offering calamitous consequences. these were his words. the treasury team is to make sure we don't by mistake make damages and unsupportive cuts. i think there's a consensus around business and the rest of the country that if you withdraw the stimulus to quickly, then you risk jobs, you risk recovery, you risk small businesses and the systems and of course the services as well. we have a tup doesn't plan. it is being implemented. is being put into law but we must first of all insure recovery first. the biggest risk to recovery is not continuing the action necessary so that we continue to grow as an economy with more jobs and therefore i would caution against those who say that the immediate cuts now would make a difference other than putting the recovery at risk.

>> you have spelled out the risk as you see it of dealing with the deficit too quickly. all economics is a matter of judgments and not of science. can you be honest with people about what the risks are of not dealing with the deficits and why in this case you don't think it is right and if i may ask you to react to the phrase that david cameron used in the analysis behind it? he says this is the great recession because it was the longest and deepest in britain's history. if that is right, why? why did that happen? >> if i may say so, five years in the 1982 recession for unemployment-- it took three years in the 1990's recession for unemployment to start coming down after the recession was over. we have taken action in an unprecedented way to make sure we come to this recession to the global financial recession with the minimum amount of damage. ides issac the sade is a matter of judgment.

my judgment will be-- conservatives opposed it. my judgment was that we had to recapitalize the banks and restructure them and we should leave for the rest of the world. my judgment was we had to have the fiscal stimulus and that is actually what we did. my judgment was we had to have mortgage holders and therefore reduce the rate of three possessions over previous recessions by half in my judgment was we had to give 300,000 businesses special help during this recession and by doing so there are small businesses of the end of last year than the beginning of last year so it is a matter of judgment. my judgment was that we had to act quickly and act decisively and dramatically to deal with the recession and i think i am being proved right. my judgment about the present situation is withdraw the stimulus to quickly and you lose jobs and you put the recovery itself at risk. in other words you can go from having recovered growth, you then see growth going down again and enter in negative form.

my judgment about the deficit is the four year deficit plan that we are preparing that includes tax rises, rises in the top rate of income tax, rises in the national insurance a wiccan pay for the health education services that people need and want, the removal of pension tax relief for the very-- as well as 25 billion announced in public spending by the chancellor and the pre-budget report, that these are the right things we have got to do but the triangle for the future is to have both tax rises deficit reductions in you have got two of growth than anything that imperils growth means we lose jobs and then lose revenue and then the deficit goes higher so i think my judgment is being proven by what we did to deal with the recession. i think my judgment is right that we should continue for the time being in my judgment is also right that there's got to be a full year of tough deficit-reduction plan sublime someone to has made big cuts in

1997 and '91 i was chancellor of the exchequer. i take the tough decisions when the tough decisions are needing to be taken. >> given the evidence we will be hearing the chilton-- chilcot inquiry, why were the two top lawyers of the foreign office ron? >> allister these are questions i am happy to address when i get to the chilcot inquiry. i think the mistake in the war was not to do the reconstruction in the way that was necessary so we recover quickly after saddam hussein fell. i think as far as the war is concerned i have always said that the united nations was said to have saddam hussein to deal with the threat posing to the other countries and it was for me a decisive part of the reasons why we have to take the action we did. >> prime minister, your defense sector said the election will be

on made the six. can you in this period of-- and confirm he has got it right? >> i think my defense secretary has said we had to take all the action necessary to prevent tories being elected on may the six in the elections. [laughter] >> thank you prime minister. as we have tragically had to-- head towards afghanistan in the falklands conflict are you comfortable with the proposals of this week's london conference on afghanistan to bribe the taliban come to pay up those who perhaps have directed campaigns against our own soldiers and will you acknowledge that is hard to accept for families. >> the fur strategy is to strengthen the afghan army and police and we will be announcing new numbers that will raise the size of the afghan army when we come to the london conference on thursday. the way that we can both secure the future of afghanistan as a

stable country and bring our troops home is essentially this, that we have got to strengthen the civilian and military authorities of the afghanistan itself of that is the major strategy. now if at the same time we can bring over from those people who were previously associated with the taliban or with groups that were taking action against the coalition forces come up by then renouncing violence and agreeing to join the democratic process, than that is of value to the peace process. that would make for a more stable and peaceful afghanistan over time that many people want to reject the taliban's enticements and of course we recognize some people who are working for the taliban are paid mercenaries. we recognize some people are facing other complex reflected in the opposition to the existing government and i believe there are many people who-- but they have to renounce violence and have to be part of the democratic process and they have to say that they will join

the civilian work of afghanistan cannot be engaged in terrorist activity but the main focus of this conference is how we can strengthen the civilian forces in afghanistan and how we can build civilian government in afghanistan free of corruption and that is why a lot is expected from president karzai that he will announce the anticorruption plan as well as other measures that will strengthen the government of afghanistan. bob. >> can i ask you the editing case were two brothers were convicted of torturing children. do you think this is in any way symptomatic of modern britain and why have there have been so many cases were social work seems to have failed to protect young people? >> if this terrible set of the bounce satins, anglers and i think discussed parents throughout the country and any parent looking at the sequence of events, with the children themselves, and then the

violence within this family, those actions should be far taken earlier to deal with the problems that were inherent in the way that family was operating in the threat that posed to the rest of the community. so we have to learn lessons from what happened. we have to learn lessons about how the social service and other authorities were, the cooperation between different agencies and we have to learn lessons that we have got to intervene and break up the family if there is violence within the family that is not controllable, and it saddens me to have to look at this case by know the people of bevington, i know the people of yorkshire, i know the people of england in britain do not think this is a typical case. it is a serious, it is damaged in the extreme family prone to violence, but i think people want to know that we will take the action necessary to deal with the family which is now being split up.

the parents may be liable to prosecution. the children-- indeterminate services and therefore that is an issue by protecting the rest of the community in the future as well as making sure an attempt is properly made. these are all issues that arise from a very extreme and sorrowful case that really every country is sickened by. >> nick from the guardian for the prime minister you mentioned your joint work with the chancellor on cutting the fiscal deficit. can i ask with do you agree with the chancellor said on the night of january when he said your fiscal deficit plan cuts introduced in april 2011 will lead to the toughest spending ground in 20 years, and under that tougher spending round public spending will be cut by 38 billion a year by 2013 and 2014. does that mean that on that basis the choices in the next

election will still be between labor and bess mendin tory cuts? >> i've just said the choice of the next election is going to be about who is best equipped to take our country ford for jobs in the future and prosperity. when you talk to people in every community, they are worried about what are the future prospects for my children and of course the deficit reduction plan is part of this and of course i agree with the chesler. we are dealing with the most dramatic financial recession for 20 years. it is hardly surprising therefore the big decisions have got to be made. i think the interesting thing is we have already unlike many other countries made some of these big decisions. we made some decisions on tax, we have made decisions on spending in made decisions about the restructuring of government in what i said today is by the time to get to the budget you will see further measures for restructuring of government to meet the times of-- the needs of the times but he will find the questions people are asking in

this country about our future in a very fiercely competitive world and i think those people the thing that just by turning off and removing the fiscal stimulus, that somehow you are going to get easy growth in this and other countries will be proven completely wrong. the danger in this country and the rest of this country and france, germany the rest of europe and america and right across the world at the moment is withdrawing the stimulus to quickly ayn lowing the economy to go into negative "again and led to believe that is a feeling that is shared by the world. in other words those parties superpose policies to remove the stimulus no are actually a risk to the party that we are determined to have. >> prime minister, by appearing before the iraq inquiry are taking a big risk, placing iraq

at the center stage, at the heart of the next british election? >> no, because i stand by all the actions that i have taken and i welcome a chance to explain not only the circumstances in which our government made the decisions it did but also the circumstances in which we brought our troops home from iraq, which happened in the last two years obviously so i welcome the chance to appear before the iraq inquiry. the inquiry thought it better after the election. i said i am happy to me of any date, so i am very happy to do that. >> prime minister, this summer the dutch are going to end their mission in afghanistan. will you urged the dutch government to reconsider their decision and ask them on thursday to extend their mission? >> look, does not for me to presume decisions made in one

country by its parliament. that is not written, but that is for the netherlands to make that decision but i would say that there are opportunities that we will be talking with all our partners about. for countries to train more troops in afghanistan even if they have decided they do not wish to be parliamentary head-to-head conflict and there's a demand for police and for army which i believe can be met by the number of countries and i hope that we will find when we get to the conference on thursday and i have been urging countries around the world to help us that we will find a balance was about how countries can do more to help. with this vital task of training afghan forces. we can bring our troops home from afghanistan at the point of which afghans are able to take full security control of their country. we cannot do that without an army that is strong, but we will be announcing further figures on thursday, we can do without a police force that is free of corruption.

it is 90,000 at the moment but it will be have to be bigger for the country the size of the afghanistan. hoepa will be able to get a number of countries to play a vital role. thank you. >> prime minister, sean from tup sports radio. investigations last week into the health inequalities across the united kingdom specifically a drug for rheumatoid arthritis suffers. not just this drug of course with c-net with myeloma suffers and heparin of course there really is to fold the question. the scottish medicine consortium approve the drug and it is approved in the united states but-- reports they are not recommend so to things really, with you look into this personally and see what you can do and also what we'd do-- whenever that might be to make sure the inequalities in the health system largesse? >> i appreciate what you are

saying. rheumatoid arthritis is a very unfortunate condition for people to have and people are looking rightly for the best years in the best treatments that is possible for it. when a new drug comes know, people want to know if it is available to them as quickly as possible so we have changed the rules, which is the organization that confirms that the drug can be given to the national health service, so that they are obliged to move forward with the drugs that are recognized as quickly as possible. ..

about the future of the service that every individual has the guarantee achievement available and i think once people know these things are available to them there will be reduction as a result of that. yes? >> primm minister, david

stringer from the associated press. on afghanistan, the conference on thursday, how will the conference could president karzai to commit to specific measures to tackle corruption within his government and to follow on chris's ? do you say to those who might feel uncomfortable the west will get funding to persuade those who attacked the troops to switch sides? >> president karzai as i keep saying and his ministers and with the addition of armed forces and the police have to show they can take security control of their country. that is the aim is and therefore anything that suggests the government of afghanistan cannot deal with its corruption problem is something we must be worried about. he's setting up an anti-corruption task force and bringing the new legislation that will be international advisers anti-corruption task force and at fisa capacity so action is being taken which he i

believe will announce further measures on the conference. as far as the earlier question and to return to that, look, nobody is going to support people on less they renounce violence and join the space process and unless they say they want to be part of a civilian government in afghanistan and it's absolutely clear these are the preconditions for any action that is taken but it's right to believe over the long term there are people working with the taliban who are as i sit there are others who got local grievances that can be dealt with in different ways which don't actually lead to the argument for the counterfeit and for afghanistan to be under taliban rules we haven't to split the taliban and i think we will have some success being able to do that. so our strategy, however, is funded first and foremost on boarding up the civilian strength of the space government in afghanistan.

>> use it's a critical week in northern ireland. can you tell what you are saying to the dp and can you give your sense what chance is there are of the deal? >> i've talked regularly over this weekend to robinson, martin and others who are concerned progress of northern ireland. at 12:00 today as you know peter and martin mcginnis will meet at 1:00 here in the london and karen and i will be discussing the progress that needs to be made to get to a resolution of this one remaining problem and that is the delusion of increasing justice to the irish assembly. we have a huge amount of progress on the central issue of the finance. there is still progress the east be made up the relationship between the executive and new minister of justice about who will hold that ministry of

justice, what his requirements or herd requirements be to the exit and there are issues that still have to be resolved as there were other issues from this agreement. i am actually confident that these issues are soluble and confident when we get people together we will be in a position to move forward and i hope that with good will we will see progress during the course of this week and i am prepared to send a considerable amount of time the next few days making sure we make the progress that is necessary. >> primm minister from reuters, president obama proposed a propriety trading where banks take gambles with their own funds on markets last week the conservatives back to it. do you think there is now a case for a global ban on proprietary trading? >> i'm not sure when i read the script of the party -- it's like many other things it is a bit unclear. if you look at the issues

related to the bank's -- first of all will we recoup the money we have had to use to save the banks is the first question to the president obama said of his measures to do it. we are doing it. we will request the money the banks have been given to help through the crisis and we will in fact make a profit on this by the end of the period. second, will we deal with bonus issues that has been raised in america and issue around the world and we put a 50% tax, i think we've gone further than other countries. the third question is how do you deal with the risk the bank's pos to the economy as a whole and i think in the american circumstances where you have five financial institutions that engage not just in proprietary trading that actually own a hedge funds and private equity it may be necessary for the private equity and hedge fund work to be separated from the work of the banks. we don't have that issue here. that is not how our financial the institutions work.

the principle is the same that you've got to take action to minimize the risks the bank cause, that means we have to higher capital requirements better insurance arrangements and to be honest if we need an international agreement on this that we are working through and as a result of the announcement by president obama and the financial secretary timothy geithner about the levy on the wholesale lending i think the proposals i made for an international what be the ones i made the were controversy let the time are now gaining the courtesy around the world and i think we would see further moves to get international agreement about some international levy to deal with the if you like the responsibility that the banks call to society which isn't met by the range and so on all three issues getting some money back making sure the bonuses are fairly taxed and moving where we can the risk to society we are taking action and in most cases that is similar to what is

happening in america. >> with the strategic defence to review coming after the election much of the debate now is between the services rather than the parties, some just for the record how would you characterize differences between labor and the conservatives on the national security issues? >> on national security we have made an enormous investment in the future of our security arrangements. we have troubled the budget since 2001 we have doubled the number of security officials, we've taken the legislative measures necessary to protect people and some of these things are controversy all and in response to the attack we have been very clear about what we had to in proof aviation security and watch lists and improve also the international and national coordination of services. i think without being complacent

and always being vigilant we have done everything that we can to make the security of the country as strong as possible and we will continue to change the arrangements as necessary to meet the threat. i would say that the opposition really have no complaint they can make is any substance against what we have tried to do. on defense i hope the old party consensus will remain in meeting our troops in afghanistan. we would must remember we have ways to defense budget in real terms every year during this government as well as provide the money needed is necessary for the campaigns in iraq and afghanistan and we must remember also the defense budget was cut savagely under the previous government. >> [inaudible] do you accept peter robinson's view that there must be changes to the operation of the commission for a wider deal to be reached on the deletion of

policing in justice? >> i think some of the issues you are raising our part of the issues discussed the moment but i am not going to conduct running commentary of the discussions that are taking place, so i don't think it is right for me to do anything other than say that is one of the issues we are looking at. >> thanks, primm mr. is a right to the two brothers in the case will have the anonymity guaranteed for life and to pick up on something you said earlier, do you were generally in light of the specific case do you agree in the past social services have been too reluctant to intervene in the most chaotic families to break them up to put children >> the second is surely where there is violence inside a

family it is difficult to justify a decision other than when the violence is so severe to break up the family to protect the children. as you know the children at the time of the incident in foster care so decisions had been made to change the family of arrangements. but any parent knows that a family that is engulfed in violence is a family that is both damaged and is at risk of damaging other people. i feel very strongly however that we have got to look at every individual instance here and what advice is going to be taken for dealing with the families concerned. and i think the rush to the generalization to the people of britain who do not want britain to be defined by a number of irresponsible damaged and

violent families who are not typical of the decent hard-working majority of people. if i may say so today when you look at that child 7-years-old raising money by doing this bicycle run and sent back over the last two months about the dozens of people in britain have been helping each other recourse of the bad weather and then you look at the numbers of people the last few months as to the hagee appeal than a society is no doubt thousands of acts of a friendship goodness and compassion and people would prefer burton as a society that wants to be like that where there is violence and damage done to children we have to intervene. >> bloomberg. prime minister, when you hear about goldman sachs partners limiting their pay to

1 million pounds this year do you think at last the message is getting through or do you think these guys still don't get it? >> i think there is a very big danger the banks want to return glycol the battle of ways and there is a very big risk if we don't take the action that is necessary sometimes very controversy all banks will relapse into being exactly what they were before, taking the reckless risks of the customers and the rewards being unrelated to the risks the eventually have been met not by the banks themselves but the people of the country taking responsibility when the banks are failed so the debate about the banks and the responsibility to society has to continue, i have made propal done including the international levee that i believe is gaining support around the world given that the banks are global and given it would be unfair for win center to be disadvantaged by taking the right action while

others benefit from being harsh on the taxation of financing banks it is far better that there is global action to deal with this issue and i've been proposing this for many months and i believe there is increasing support for my view that we have to take that action. yes, i will take some from this side. >> primm minister, to questions. first of all, they're has been heightened security in britain in the last few days based apparently on intelligence provided by india that there was possibly a plot to hijack a plane and india and crashed into a british city. your comment on this, please. the second is about the afghanistan conference. india will take part. britain has been talking about the enhanced role for india in the future of afghanistan. but precise role would you like india to play? >> i believe the neighbors of

afghanistan both neyer and related countries should come together to see what they can do to help sustain the infant democracy of afghanistan and i believe india has a role to play their. i have to say that the decisions to raise the security alert are taken for a range of different reasons. to raise it from substantial to severe was a decision taken after looking that is the joint terrorism and was a committee looking at a whole series of events and forces at work. before july, 2008 for a year after july 2007 it was severe as well. we have already as you can see taken measures to step up our security. we've already taken measures to step up aviation security that were pronounced in the last few weeks. i announce big changes in the way we deal with the listing of terrorist suspects and also what

we would do one lifting them fly or enhance security if we were on that list and i've already said we are taking measures to strengthen coordination of security service is so we are already taking action that response to the security threats that face our country. let us be and no doubt there are a group of people hatching and planning terrorist plots the would wish to do enormous damage to our country as to other countries and we have all times to take the action necessary to show we are vigilant and at the same time to show people are around the world we must work together to deal with this terrorist threat. >> channel four news. at the beginning i think i understood you correctly saying any additional proceeds from the bank about put the assumptions were would go to the deficit reduction. does that go for any other as it were windfalls you might, by if unemployment went down faster

than expected? to quotation from alistair darling in his interview earlier in january was saying that the next spending around will be the toughest. cuts will be severe since the 1970's who ever is in power. that is your position. you agree with that? >> i'm glad you allowed me to clarify that and repeat what i said in the house of commons. every government around the world is facing the same problem. we've had the worst financial recession for 70 years. that means you've got to make difficult decisions and we are prepared to make these difficult decisions. i said if we were to get more from the bank a bonus and we believe we will some of that will go to reduce the deficit. i also said we believe the situation at the moment is still uncertain about how much money will be available as a result of the reduction in unemployment

rate is we have reduced unemployment half a million of the forecast was. >> some of you have experienced and are in the recession during the recession of the 90's and the 80's will know just how long it took for on an plan to start falling after the recession. we've taken unique measures, and president not to be the measure on u.s. unemployment we could get unemployment down more quickly and save social security benefits and get the economy growing more quickly and visibly more unemployed to have the more it costs you the less unemployed you have, the more you can actually reduce your deficit and get people back to work that will and money themselves so we recommend we would have a major savings as a result of the lower unemployment we managed to achieve because the measures we've taken. i think it's all going to come back to this. we are determined to maintain the momentum for growth in our economy and jobs.

we are not going to be put off course by people shouting what is necessary to cut the deficit today. we have a four year deficit reduction plan that means we will have the deficit over that for your period. but those people for political dogmatic reasons got it wrong right across the recession and get advice that was completely mistaken about what we should do on getting it wrong again and we cannot take that advice if we have the breast to beat the best interest of the economy and jobs and growth and prosperity at the center. behind you. >> primm minister, you have agreed already to take part in the live television debate with other leaders. i was wondering and pete said they're willing to take part in the live television debate together is that something you would support?

>> i did debates with kenneth clarke. i can't remember what i did but i did debates with kenneth clarke and remember them very well so there's been to be debates during the election campaign. one of the great things about the next few weeks is people will see there are big issues about the future of the country to be with and then we will ask is this a referendum of the government or a choice between two competing policies and when they look at the competing policies they will find we have a policy and they will find it is difficult to know the conservative policy is. what is it on the married couples allowance? we don't know. what is it on the national insurance. we don't know. they had a law-and-order policies published last week. no mention of the numbers and of the cctv or the dna. but a family's policy, no mention of the child trust fund or child tax credits. what we are finding is that reduced policy documents which is one characteristic they contained no new policy and therefore the debate will be a real one and i think if i may say so the fact the conservative

party hasn't changed all despite the public relations they put on it and the flimflam we get, despite all of that people will see through a party that basically hasn't reformed its policies and when it is in difficulty if returns to the policies of the past. married couples allowance, to those of one, to those of five and now 2,009. for years in opposition to the policy and the detail and after four years they are not even able to tell how the policy is going to work. thank you. behind you. >> thank you. michael from the herald. there is a campaign to keep the traditional oversight count for the general election but a growing number of councils are actually suggesting they are going to tell the following day and destroy the traditional election. i was wondering whether you support the campaign to keep the traditional overnight account whenever it may be.

>> i have got one privilege in life to be to decide after the general election but i don't have the privilege of deciding how the election -- i know there is a debate going on after the circulation from the commission about how the county should be done and that is for people to sort out themselves. obviously it is going to be fair and as expeditiously as possible >> adc australia. this international move that you are proposing on the banks, with transactions in particular would it apply to come and given that the u.s. administration has already said it opposes a so-called tax would hope is there for global coordination in this area? >> the united states to propose a tax on lending and funding.

so the united states proposed a tax that is not to dissimilar from what i've been proposing for some time and what you find happening is a different country what it means and then we get an international consensus and it isn't anyone country's interest but any one it has to be a global agreement. you will find things are moving forward in this discussion and they will move forward the next few months. as before, what is the basis of the levy it could be transactions, it could be funding it could be lending plus salary costs. there is an international debate going on and i say we've let this debate but obviously different countries will have different views how wade is concluded in the and you will see over the next few years and international levy because it is the only way the dealing with global financial institutions you can deal with a cost they may in opposed and the insurance

we need against the risk they can pose to the society. >> would that be separate from the -- >> the u.s. has some tax and it is debating at the moment obviously it has to go through congress and everything else. but there is a similarity between the u.s. proposal and the proposal that i've made. yes in the that people haven't yet got questions. there's two more. >> thank you, primm minister. a daily express. are you in favor of abolishing the state retirement age and giving people the right to work as long as they are able and want to? >> this debate has been going on for years. it is a debate there is a review taking place let's wait until we get to the end of the review. thank you. >> jonathan. the minister last week returning to the tax you said we should -- you defended keeping up the secret to the causey reese cates

review and confidential until it is published. now we have that. but they've ten people have in the system that lessons will be learned what we know despite the best opportunities probably on the individuals who made those have actually been identified in that report and say can be held publicly accountable? >> think it is a serious case review. lessons learned one way people can speak freely are drawing up the review with the knowledge the lessons can be absorbed and we can say everything they feel they want to. it is not the criminal case. it is not the proceedings. it is a review to learn the lessons from what has happened. and the copy of the report as you know is given to all the different authorities who have to make judgments about what needs to happen and that means the summary published from the public consumption. i was asked before the end of

the case last wednesday in the house of commons and before having seen the summary myself on the basis of the document what my view was, and i still hold the view i said last wednesday of course that summary has got to be comprehensive and deal with all the issues. still in the interest in the ennis pc and other organizations have said. the children of course themselves and free to speak to that inquiry. the lessons have to be learned but they have been learned as a result of the work that children safeguarding board is now doing. thank you. >> the terrorist threat level was raised on friday to disappear. there will be lots of commuters

coming into wondering about this week when we have the himeno conference, the afghanistan conference. we have got tony blair and the iraqi. can you assure the public there is no specific threat against london this week? >> can i say what the nature of the alert is so that everybody is clear? when we raise the word from substantial to severe we need a terrorist attack is highly likely that we also say it is not expected to be imminent. i obviously go on the advice given to me by the secretary because it is his announcement of the joint terrorism adviser center. i have to tell you taking into account a number of factors not one factor, not a single potential fact we take into account a number of factors and we are returning the security to the situation it was from july, 2007 when we had the edge of the terrorist attack in london to

july, 2008 and i have to reassure people in my statement last wednesday which perhaps something we wish to look at a bit more carefully in light of the announcement on friday it made it absolutely clear that of course there is a threat from terrorist groups who want to do damage to the country that have also made it clear what measures we were taking as a matter of urgency to increase the security because of the knowledge of the new methods of terrorism and increasing security for the country. >> [inaudible] >> the terrorism alert, nobody is going to comment on instances. the terrorist alert was raised because a number of factors and we've already taken some additional action as you can see to deal with the new threat is posed by the types of threats in detroit. >> with american abc. you said earlier he would be

announcing new numbers to raise the number of afghan national police and afghan national army at the upcoming conference. is that of the members of the international community has already agreed to and was sort of numbers are we talking about? and with regard to reconciling the taliban with the u.k. government support the idea of a taliban political party at some point? >> at some point of course we look forward to afghanistan producing a more vibrant democracy but of course the basis of that has to be clean elections and there's a lot of work to be done to ensure in the future elections that happens. as far as the conference is concerned as you know quite a number of countries have already announced they will give additional forces from afghanistan. i believe both fur traders and forces generally there are still some announcements to be made.

equally as far as the afghan army and afghan police are concerned we have given already the numbers for 2,010,134,000 army -- 90 something, 90,000 police. we are looking at what the future might be like and it may be that we would say something on that on thursday. yes. still one or two people over there. okay. >> from time magazine. you mentioned in answer to an earlier question that we were raised the defense budget which is true but also there's been deep cuts under the tories in the expectation of which proved wildly inaccurate if peace dividend. the reason you have the spectacle of the heads of the different services fighting publicly is because there is a sense of overstretch of dwindling resources. there was a recent report

predicting 20% reduction in service personnel numbers pointed out rising procurement costs. is the logic of this not in the and written in the british armed forces have to reduce the scope of their ambition? >> the strategic defense of 1997, 98 made a number of recommendations we have followed ever since. we added a new chapter to the strategic defense review i think in 2004 to deal with the new issues that confront it as a result of terrorism. the fact is that since the early years of the century we've been involved in two major conflicts in iraq and afghanistan and we are not involved in iraq but we are still in afghanistan. our defense budget is added to for every intervention we have to make there is an addition to the normal work of the defense forces and the defense ministry. so over the last few years we've made available increasing

amounts of money from the reserve in addition to the defense budget and every expenditure on afghanistan is an expenditure that is essentially made from the reserve. three or four years ago there was 600 million pounds a year. this year i think it is 3.5 billion a year. so the costs that we are meeting for afghanistan are on top of the budget and we will continue to be so so there is no danger the actions we are taking in afghanistan will be underfinanced. we will meet all of our response to these including for the safety of individual soldiers with proper equipment and support services. >> daily record. prime minister, you characterized yourself today as a politician willing to cut, who has cut earlier as chancellor agreed 38 billion worth of cuts in the next parliament. people are entitled to know where these cuts are going to fall, defense and at what level

and we will we know? >> we announced we will raise the money in different ways and i did there is a myth that the deficit reduction plan is not detailed. it is the tilt to the point of which either american or other countries in europe have announced tax rises and we've done so. we are prepared to say that we've raised taxes. we also announced 25 billion expenditure changes. but i make the further point that i made earlier there's a great deal of uncertainty about how much growth will be in the economy the next two or three years if we can keep unemployment coming down. if we can save money for social security benefits depending with the level of debt interest rate is that will affect the money available to different apartments said it would be premature now allocates spending to all departments on the basis of such uncertainties which include the on uncertainties about on employment and uncertainties about interest rates and indeed about growth to

rid our trinity of measures is first of all to make the tax rises necessary in the second to prepare for the restructuring of government for the changes in spending, the cuts in spending and efficiency sending and to go for growth and i think everybody that looks at this issue is missing the the central factor of driving growth for word as the biggest means by which we both get jobs in the economy and reduce the deficit. as i say previous elections may have been about more spending, less spending and everything else. the coming election is about where the jobs of the future come from and where the economy is going to grow in the future, the new industries will be created in the future and how that fits in with the deficit reduction plan the we are proposing and any party that is suggesting that we take huge cuts in our spending today i just repeat is putting the recovery at risk.

>> michael, newsnight. are you concerned about the huge debt, the uncertainty and lack of transparency surrounding some of our major football clubs? is this something government should do anything about and can they do anything about? >> there is an issue here for football supporters that over the last few years a number of football clubs have become leverage and therefore they have higher levels of debt and the income they are able to generate from the football activities in the television activities. and it is a matter that i have to be concerned about themselves pitted of course in many cases of there are some ways we can deal with some of these problems. in other cases football clubs don't have the income that is necessary to deal with the leverage they have. but this is an issue and it's an issue the football clubs are facing and it is a worry to the supporters and i think the

management of the football clubs have to look very seriously at their responsibilities to the supporters that they have high levels of income from the supporters but the debt levels are actually at a level that has been too high. >> [inaudible] >> it is an issue for the clothes themselves. they have got to deal with this issue and if a football club of course is in real trouble than it has to need the discipline of the football league association. thank you. >> thank you, primm minister. there's been several reports recently about unfunded assertions made by the ipcc report and climate change in 2007. do you think that undermines your effort to try to get a climate change deal? >> no because i think the academic evidence as a whole leads to one conclusion that we have got to take action against climate change and i don't think

there was any disagreement amongst the countries of copenhagen that allowed the pitcher rise above 2 degrees by 2015. it would be something the would be very serious indeed and therefore, the major countries in the world and not all countries except that at the conclusion and are working within that. the key issue now is for the countries to make the cut ends as they promised to do to the national plan for climate change target's and make them public and internationally registered so that we can bring people together probably in the next few months to see what progress we can make on getting a final climate change agreement. i will take two more. yes. >> brann willson from the sun. returning to the aplington keys to talk to the importance of learning lessons from this case. we now have a specific proposal on the table to allow full publication's reviews protecting the anonymity of the children

and witnesses. are you prepared to change your mind and back of that proposal? >> i think the you have got to get to the background of what's happened here before you drawback to that conclusion. all of us are shocked by what has happened. all of us feel that we have to look at what lessons can be learned so that where there is violence within a family and this is violence of the young people but also practiced by the parent that action should have been taken. but what is the purpose of the case review? is the purpose that there are headlines about the children or the other people in the newspapers? the purpose is to learn lessons from this. we asked the court to look seriously at what should be done after the cbp case when the same argument was made the documents should be published. this is the court case, this is

the document about what happened and what should happen within the authorities. lord lehman came back with advice the was very strong indeed that while there should be a full summary published you should not publish the serious case review. then we have the ennis b.c. seat. they reported last week in the house of commons sere they may have doubts whether there should be full publication of these. in fact they made absolutely clear while they want a full summary don they do not want full publication of these reviews. so i have to take the advice not just what seems common sense to me that we protect the anonymity of the children and also as the lord lehman said perhaps he thinks it is more important than that make sure people feel free to get them to say the things they want. and i do hope people will look of the arguments that have been proved by the speed and other

professionals in the field as well as her lord layman himself. people said they were grateful for him doing that. and now because the publicity surrounding the case people want to jump to a simple answer which is published a case review. surely the answer is we have got to look for is how these authorities work better together and learn how from this. the half full copies of the report and have to look out the act together, and so i take the advice that is the advice of the ns ipcc and others and i do say to look behind what is happening here rather than the sensationalism of publicity. our first interest must be the children. the children affected and who perpetrated these crimes. and i think we have to look at what is best and what is in the interest of these children. i do fear some of the debate in this country has moved beyond that to something else. it should be about the interest of these children.

yes, thank you. >> thank you, primm minister. yemen which has a threat to britain immediately after you announced the meeting in him in all of them in it that they take part in that conference and they urged their people to go out and fight in them on a muslim city foot. the yemeni government which is in sharing our values have said nothing. are you sure that the yemeni non-government can follow the community and fight terrorism? >> i talked to the president of yemen and i talked about this conference. yen and will be represented at the conference. we are one of the biggest countries helping the development of yemen and he made

it clear that he understands the serious of the situation he faces while operating within him in and he wants to work with us and we want to show the other countries prepared to work with them and to deal with this terrorist threat. it is absolutely right to the countries that want to help yemen get together to make sure the message is clear that demand when it takes on the threat has the support of the vast majority of all the international community. final question. there is one in the back. >> jim, abc news. you have the afghanistan and yen in conference is next to each other this week. britain and the u.s. in the midst of a sizable surge in afghanistan at the same time that there is evidence that some of the most hardened al qaeda fighters are fleeting -- fleeing the afghan pakistan border region for countries such as yemen and somalia and from where they are able to stage or attempt to stage attacks in the u.s.. does that mobility in your view

underlying to some degree the case for the search for the enormous on occasion of resources in afghanistan and is the west, is britain and the u.s. being as flexible as the terrorists in this case? >> no, it doesn't undermine what we are trying to do in afghanistan and pakistan. it is a measure of some success that we have had that al qaeda is being dispersed and it is weaker in the south waziristan region and has been for some time and it is also a measure of our success that they have been chased out of afghanistan and cannot find satisfactory base. it's obviously difficult to other areas are on the world to mount plots and organize. we said before the yen and plot became norm lisieux malida and yemen were to of the areas we were looking at where there was heightened activity we would continue to take whatever action is necessary to make sure the streets of our country is in our country and other countries are

safe and that's why we introduce the measures we did last week and why allen johnson announced measures on aviation security after christmas. we know there was a threat. we know that people would want to do damage to the country. we know we have to take action and be tall times vigilant in dealing with this but that includes not only what we do domestically but what we do to prevent terrorists operating afghanistan and pakistan and yemen or somalia. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] speed now we will hear from the british conservative party leader of david cameron today he spoke to reporters about the economy, health care and the afghanistan war. he also announced the conservative party would run candidates in the northern ireland election under a new coalition party.

this is 35 minutes. >> thank you for coming to my first press conference in 2010. before answering questions let me say a word about three things. the state of our economy and change in the conservative party. first society. our chapter of last was a blueprint for mending broken on schools, crime, and families, on other areas, too. yes we did talk very frankly and openly about the things that have gone wrong. not just the crime, addiction, educational failure but teenage pregnancy and also terrible things that have happened including the harvick assault and it wasn't an attack by a speech on friday or any one government. i made it absolutely clear. it was part of the honest and straightforward debate about mending the dvorkin society the

life in addressing ever since i became the dealer of this party over four years ago. but i do believe labour's response has shown how little they have to contribute to this the date. what happened as we've been saying for months now serious case reviews to have to be published in full. it is wrong, absolutely wrong something like this can happen and all that gets published is a summary the doesn't mention the name of any of the people who missed a sign after sign of what was going wrong. as i sit in the house of commons on wednesday when a mental health patient commit a murder we have a full report without an enmity where appropriate word we allowed a less rigorous system to put in place when children are tortured or even killed. when we become the government this will change. reports in cases like these will be published. on the broader issue of our society just consider these facts.

inequalities at a record high in this country. the poorest are poor and there are more of them. we have more children growing up in households nobody works shiastan any other country in europe and unicef said britain is the worst place in the developed world to be a child. we have one of the highest rates of family breakdown in europe and our figures for teenage pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse are among the worst. that is why i believe we are right to set out plans to mend the broken society and labor shows how to touch to deny this problem exists. let me now turn to the economy. tomorrow new figures are expected to show the first signs of economic growth after 18 months of recession. this will be good news but let's be absolutely clear what this means. we were one of the first economies to go into recession and we're going to be the last day economy to come out. our recession, the great recession is the longest and the deepest since the war and coming out of recession doesn't mean that our debt crisis is over in

fact far from it. labor's debt crisis is the biggest threat to the recovery so we will only get this recovery point if we start right now on a proper debt reduction plan. the case is clear. we've just had the worst public borrowing figures for any on record. we faced the biggest budget deficit as any large economy. we are borrowing money at a rate of around 6,000 pounds every second which means every five seconds the government borrows more than the average for this person earns in a year. this year we are expected to borrow almost 14% of gdp that is almost twice as much as when we went bust in the 1970's. and we are spending more money on the interests on the debt than almost anything else. we cannot go on like this. we need to look at greece to see what happens if we do. since the world lost confidence in their the lead to pay the bills they are having to pay an

extra 2.5% in interest rates. britain is borrowing more than greece so if we follow greece and have credit rating downgraded the interest bill on 150,000 on mortgage could go up by more than 200 pounds a month. the cost of credit for businesses would go up, more jobs would be lost and we would be taking billions more in taxes each year just to service the debt. it is like a credit card. the more we spend and the longer we wait to pay off bills the worse it can get so we need to get a group of the debt crisis. the government's promise to halve the deficit in four years has frankly failed to convince those who we need to have confidence in britain's economic future. as we've said consistently a key part of any plan is at least some early action to show you are serious in your intent. that means some reduction in public spending plans in this coming financial year. 2010. the government approach to coin a phrase is to do nothing. if we are going to have to wait

until may for an election and if there's going to be a budget in march the need to show how they are going to start now. they're about to tell us the economy is growing so they have no further excuse to delay action except naked political calculation. it is time they realize that it is time to do the right thing. so we need big changes in alberta economy and society and when people ask me and my team if we are up to delivering those changes of the ways we are proving it is by pointing out how much our party has changed and that brings me to the final thing i want to say this morning. black and minority candidates now make up almost 10% of all selected conservative candidates. that is roughly the same proportion as a whole and in addition we are on track to trouble the number of conservative women. there are 110 women candidates already selected many of them fighting for one of zero seats. if we win the election instead of just 18 conservative women we will have more than 60 and

instead of just two black and minority ethnic in peace they will be between ten to 15 but that isn't enough, but that is a sign how much we have changed. and in a year the whole country is crying out for change and a new way of doing things i believe it is a further sign that we are ready to serve. thank you for listening and i am happy to take some questions. james? this is a microphone. sorry. you were so quick off the mark i missed out the front row but we will come back. >> james, bbc. can you outline of the extent of the nature and the purpose of conservative party talks can you explain about the positioning for the parliament? are they with a view to secure the unionist wit in favor of the conservative party in parliament and do you regret the fact the appear to be adding to an already tense situation?

>> the aim here is simple. we want to see delusion completed. we want to be a success. we know how we imported it is for the future security and safety of the whole united kingdom. this goes way beyond politics. it's really important it happens. and in all of the relationships we have had discussions we have with other union parties, first front and foremost is we must complete the illusion of policing and justice and i think we can play a helpful role because there is a danger always of the unionist party is looking over each other's soldiers and worrying about having to take the first step and the other one somehow gaining a politically so the most important thing in all the discussions we have whether i am talking to ridge or peter robinson whoever i talk to very important to stress for us up front most important is to get that completed. as you know the plans for the

conservative party and the official unionists to put up candidates representing a new political force in northern ireland at the general election. it's well under way selecting the candidates and we have to stand in every single seat under the new party label of conservatives and unionists standing together. i think that is a positive thing for northern ireland. it helps show now the constitutional future is settled there should be more normal politics in northern ireland and people shouldn't be forbidden from being able to support stand for and vote for across the united kingdom but i can't stress too much our influence in doing this is to help push ahead devolution of justice to complete the picture that we think is so important. >> [inaudible] >> patterson who is my excellent program ireland spokesperson meets regularly with the dp and other parties. all of the talks he has been

having the most important thing is pushing for that agenda making sure the process doesn't get the real and that comes before absolutely anything else. sorry i should spread the sort of a little bit. >> mick robinson, bbc news. mr. cameron, you spelled out what you think is necessary to deal with a deficit. you're chancellor's as you will get rid of the bulk of the first term. can we talk in the language most voters will understand? can you confirm this means we will cut public spending and raise taxes tens of billions of pounds if you are elected before seeking another election mandate? and can you confirm there is a risk in any economic strategy and the rest is i could join us back into recession? >> let me take the second bit first. the biggest risk facing the british economy and i think this is now backed up by what people with the bank of england, ims,

many economists are saying the risks facing of the economy now is not taking action to deal with a budget deficit. the risk is not taking action to read the risk is what the government is doing which is putting off decisions to the future because if the international community loses confidence in the british economy as i said in my remarks you could see interest rates going up, unemployment going up, taxes going up. we are going to have to borrow a staggering amount of money for the rest of the world to the rest of the world is going to demand an interest rate for lending that money. and as we shall we are serious about paying the money back. they ask for higher interest rate. i don't think that is a difficult thing for people to understand. it is like your credit card. the longer you leave it the worse it gets. we all know that from our own lives and it is the same for the government. that is why we are seeing today the next step the government has to take is to say we have to make some progress in 2010.

we know they are not going to have a budget. the test for the budget will be dewey tenet the spending plans announced for 2010 and actually start making some progress in reducing those plans? you cannot do it all in one year or two years or three. of course you can't. you can't deal with this deficit spending alone. of course you can't. but you can show you are serious about it and it's time for the government to get serious to put away the prophetic dividing lines to put away the moral cowardice not dealing with this issue and to behave like a grown-up government looking the british public in the eye and saying we have a problem we are going to deal with it with you as we've been suggesting now for months and months and months. chris? >> mr. cameron in the last week to have reiterated your support for recognizing marriage and the tax system.

i think the polls of the weekend continue to show voters remain unconvinced by the plan. how much longer do you plan to keep the voters in the dark about the details to use one of your own phrases we can't go on like this. do you agree? >> the phrase is catching on triet i even heard mixing it on television the of the day which was encouraging how other parties are taking of the clarion cry. the good thing about the last few weeks is there can be no doubt the conservative party is utterly serious about backing marriage including for the tax system. yes opinion polls show this doesn't have universal support. as i said friday i am not doing this because i think somehow it is popular. i am doing it because it is my belief. it is right. we need a more family friendly country. we need more commitment from country. it's time to recognize we are never going to improve society and is all about me, mechem me. it is about staying together, having children together bringing them up together.

we should encourage that. now of course a small amount of money doesn't make the big difference in deciding whether people get married or stay married. i've always said the message is more important than the money but it is time we started sending a very strong message about the importance of commitment and the last point to make is this. we are going to be fighting this election in a totally different set of circumstances. any of us in this room have come across. that is a 13% budget deficit and i want to address the association of conservative peers the other day. there was nigel and jeffrey and all the other figures. none of them have experienced a 14% budget deficit and it does mean we have to be careful about making specific pledges on till we can match them with specific figures. but everyone can't know, everyone should be no doubt at all the conservative government will recognize marriage properly in the tax system.

>> we think we know when the election is happening but we are all in a bit of land with a moment. >> i'm not sure -- the list of people you lead on with the plan so it could have been a fake. i'm sorry i interrupted your question. >> that's all right. basically if he were a criminal store where you end of the right to the press minister to call an early election? >> i do think there is a case for fixed term parliament, there's a strong case there is a weakness in the case which i've never quite worked out the way through which is what happens when you have a very weak minority government and a fixed parliament might be stuck with that for a long period of time so i haven't committed this. i see the temptation on the parlance. what in ways improve the system but i haven't found a way through that particular problem.

>> [inaudible] -- keep us in the dark? >> as i said i always felt this was different because rewinding, tony blair told us that he would serve a full third term. was a very specific pledge so i said at the moment he miraculously stepped off the purchase i said clearly they promised a full third term and we haven't got one. the prime minister what the proper mandate and we need a new election so i've been repeating that every morning after i get out of bed and i still feel the same way today. ..

>> as it is a 14 mary genentech system through strengthening families and no way to tackle child poverty. but is not discourses of debt to get through that policy. we made the commitment clear.

>> thank you very much. of it is such a dreadful and long recession why is unemployment unexpected? in to give any commitment to the stewardship? and i did find that are you one big happy prison? >> we do have record levels of unemployment broke a because it is not some successful point* to try to taco. we also went into the recession with high levels of people and training the end of the boom and over repossession figures it should get slightly better tension which is the

repossession fig -- figures don't include the common people at the very last minute who have to basically surrender their ho, ho, ho at -- home to a third party rather than homeowners. a lot of people have actually lost their home of like the official statistics on the issue that the prime minister talks about business failures with figures over the weekend howl been a small business failures happen during this recession more than previous recessions and also what a high percentage were pushed into that position and the changes to deal with that. on the issue of prison and prison ship in is a patient is important people relieving under the executives came even before it got to the halfway point*

in their sentence completely undermines the face of the justice system and send say dreadful signal to the country and criminals and prisonship is a good way to make sure we do it in a timely and cost-effective manner and we boobies send it out plans for that in the days and weeks a to come. >> i still understand you are saying about ed lange 10. are you say there would be fewer and if you are not are you guilty of using a tragedy kazakhstan could rehash of the next question please? >> on. . . nobody can say terrible things will not happen but what you can do it is try to do things that make it less

likely. with this case, not only is it a case in the report to there were so many missed opportunities this was predictable and preventable when you look at the situation over a series of years there was case after case come by case review after case review because none were published in full there was not the attention in detailed knowledge of was going wrong shared widely enough. i really do believe if we find a way to publishing these reports and full of course, you have to have added remedy for people's names. are really do think greater steps would be taken more quickly. there is a sense there is the establishment where all people who have taken part in this issue, they are not named or taking proper responsibility the public is

able to see what is gone wrong and the pressure is not there to put it right. in the end for the government to do the right thing to take over the social services department we only did that between the 2007 review when it found a serious failings in 2009 when the government took over their rate a series of further that if the case review was published in flow i suspect earlier action would have been taken. i do not think it is politics at all. it is a serious issue a mental health patient kill somebody we have a full public review. go back and look at the veto report. it is hundreds of pages all published. the 12 page review coming out after a case like edlington the. the first four pages of our profits. it is really eight pages her

could do we stop everything? of course, not. but would it be a spur to further action with more responsibilities stake in? absolutely yes. that is why we will publish these reports of the future. >> on the same point* does this mean you back to the liberal democrats to amend the children and families bill to achieve the same goal? >> if there is opportunity to put pressure on the issue to the legislative program, yes. absolutely we will work with anybody to make sure that happens. what we have said you have to do with the bulk of the structural deficit in the parliament. it is a substantial figure but the point* i am making today is about early action or part of any plan passed to make a start in 2010 and

is in sight the government cannot go into hiding. it looks like they will have to grow it. >> to montgomery broker david comeback kid you join twitter? [laughter] >> i made a good early start downing street have followers it has about 60,000 with boris johnson and you can easily communicate 10 thousands of people of very quickly with 140 character messages. >> it is very kind of you to give me this opportunity i will obviously avoid the verbal slap upside made on the previous location about tweets and twits. we need to use all forms of

communication i know it is extremely popular but the only problem i have is policy is so much time talking and making speeches and blogs of the rest if every time you add to the great panoply of communication you have to think very carefully about whether you can keep up and if you fully 38 -- think through everything you say before you say it. i will take away your thought to see if i can tweaked without the other. >> mr. cameron it is made clear it is almost per possible to rule out if the increase would you rather see the increase rather than a national insurance increase? >> but ken is right you cannot as responsible opposition rule out tax increases.

way back various parties said you cannot rule out the tax writers but you cannot prevent them and that is when i come back to early action on spending reduction in terms of the budget. the more you do with that the less you have to do up anything else. >> mr. cameron a question that i think is rather important of national interest, what will the conservative party did to improve quality of health care with a new drug government '08 arthritis sufferers? it is permitted and approved for use in scotland because it is governed by a the scottish consortium by the fact who despite a wide use across europe and the united

states. >> it is a very good question and it is important. one of the ways around this is to have a value based pricing power grab the moment you have drug companies will produce a new drug people read about it here about it with good clinical test but the wheel goes very slowly until it is licensed and you can get from the primary care trusts. the idea behind value based pricing you are saying to the drug company wants the drug is cleared you should start prescribing it and read the taxpayer would effectively pay him on the basis on how effective the drug is. you are sharing the risk with the drug community rather than waiting until a decision is made tragically many people die eight from not having the drug did you have value priced. >> i am sorry the national institute for clinical

health seems to be discouraging the scottish physicians say that they will not recommend this particular drug. so where do get this drug in the u.k. depends on where you live. that is what i am asking if you to do anything to address that. >> value based pricing does address that we do have a system is goddess authorities come to a different conclusion about a different way of doing things that is part of the role by think in the case of the english version if you have a value based pricing model is easier to get more drugs out to more people quickly and share the risk. >> what can i just get clarification on a prisonship? does that mean you're planning to introduce this at the same time and a few

weeks? >> to enter early release you need to make available a relatively rapid the extra present capacity. when of the fastest ways of doing that is through the prisonship. we will set out our plans over the coming weeks three bolt expand that pledge with the early release i think a making their position pretty clear. >> those people who ostentatiously his support education and then send their own children to church schools? >> federally agree with the premise because the church schools are parts of the comprehensive system. it is good they are.

they have a lot to bring to the education my daughter goes to the excellent church of england to school and i am proud that she does. any parent who wants the best for their child and wants to have a good school should be supported. i am in favor of people exercising choice if discretion and that dries up quality. >> if that is the case it is the resume the alas end of the ability of church schools to select their own peoples? >> guy and never sure what he is trying to do. but sometimes he says that but then he eight supports them we need to have a slim down in the admissions process and criteria and make it less complicated what rather than more

complicated. it is an important part of the system i would like to see them grow and it would help it improve and i am a strong supporter personally and politically. carol? >> to pick up on james question, suggesting it would not be helpful to have more than one unionist candidate in certain seeds would you consider widening the negotiations and talk you're having to have some sort of electoral pact? >> when it comes to the westminster which is what we have been focusing on the chance to go to for a u.k. wide party it is a new

force, it is very clear that this must stand with every constituency in northern ireland. part of the problem is the idea that somehow you can carve these seats up we are a national party lives scotland, wales coming england, if we are a national party we should stand in every constituency there. that is extremely important. one last question. sorry i cannot leave out jean who comes to every speech. [laughter] long-suffering. [laughter] shame on the rest of beer. >> on the above the think you plan on the international stage who should bankers listen to?

>> bakers have the unique pleasure of having a boris' and george lunch together where there was common ground on what needs to be done on the issues of pay and responsibility and a whole range of subjects it is not right to suggest there is a difference but what obama has done is important with two specific regards by taking on this issue about whether we should stop banks yet effectively using retail business deposits to take part in the riskiest parts of banking it is not a return to the old glass-steagall it is the way to say large-scale proprietary trading big banks that is not what abc no bank should be doing. is a very positive step forward to opening the door it was wider discussions discussions, the second thing he said is addressing

the issue had to deal with the moral hazard of having organizations that know there will be protected for ever going to the ball for the taxpayer guarantee to take huge gambles as a result. the money from the past the model could be a way to build up the fund for the future it opens the door to what we were saying how we could agree and that is something would a conservative government elected could do if the run up to the g20 in korea. this shows the conservative party has been on the money about the changes of bank regulation and finance where the prime minister seems stock on the old fashioned model of banking and

regulation and that tax is not seem to be flying. >> following up, i take it there is no way the u.k. would do that approach? and also on a separate issue you talk about who would been traveling under government for car you still intending to impose the short list? >> the only issue unilaterally, the door is not open to have conversations internationally to try to get agreement for something that would make sense that would do with the issues of the past but also set this up better for the future. we have made good progress. i am delighted over 61 amid if we win. if there are more and the retirements between now and the election the opportunity

will be identified and based on the idea the best three or four candidates would be women who are not yet selected because there are good winning candidates that have not. it does remain an option particularly if there is another number of retirements from colleagues currently assisting in the house of commons. thank you verycoming and i am ao seeing you in february. thank you.

the clinton administration. the migration policy institute's this 90-minute event. >> good morning. my name is a doris meissner i am very, very pleased to welcome such a large

audience to this kickoff event we have this morning. it is in the event we are videotaping so please turn off yourself funds. -- cellphones. let me say in particular that i am glad in particular for a large turnout because we're launching a new series this morning called leadership position in as speaker series and nablus think john morton it is vance for being willing to be invited here and except the participation to participate. in march and we will have from u.s. citizenship and immigration services, another key position because what we want to do with the speaker series is give people who have substantial and imports to end immigration

portfolios of a government an opportunity to meet with a public audience here and explain their vision for there agency, particularly early on in there tenure as possible. we will get you the invitation on the next run that will be followed with others as people are confirmed and so forth. the four met revalues this morning is for me to turn over the party am to john morton who will make remarks will be his opportunity to lay out what i started in but he sees the ice work to him being there and then he will join me right for he is now seated on the stage and we will have a conversation for a bit and i will ask him questions to follow up on what he talks about and raise issues he has not had a chance to

touch and then reopen the floor to questions from you in the audience. you all have johns biography in front of you. you know, that he has outstanding credentials for the position that he occupies. next to the fbi you also know i.c.e. immigration and customs enforcement is the second largest federal enforcement agency, an investigative agency that has 20,000 employees, a budget of 5.7 billion dollars, we're talking about a very substantial enterprise. jon of course, has had a career in federal law enforcement and has substantial experience and knowledge of immigration policy as well as the overall criminal-justice system. i would have to say i have known and followed and worked with him throughout that period beginning in

1994 when he came to the government from the university of virginia school of law as the end of law graduate and a first position was and the office of general counsel when i was there. there is no question that john was smart and incredibly hard-working, capable of handling difficult and sensitive issues and he advanced very quickly giving the characteristics and attributes through a variety of positions at the department of justice. it has been 16 years since that time. and john has worked in policy positions, he has been a prosecutor with a focus on terrorism and national security has helped a number day's show the number of senior positions at the justice department which oversees the work of

all united states attorneys around the country. i am not sure any resume would be full of the position that he holds but i am sure his background is as good as it will get to in terms of relief representing a model combination of experience and background. for those kind of credentials we would want to see act i. ase, john definitely has them. as a result i will give you know, the opportunity to come forward and talk to us then join me in the share. thank you very much. [applause] >> good morning i am john morton assistant secretary of immigration and customs enforcement i want to welcome you all here and thank you for coming today

to hear me speak pretoria very excited to be here to give my perspective on the i.c.e., of the mission and its future. very warm think do to the immigration policy institute to allow me to address you here today. i am a big believer a thoughtful policy based analysis and we're fortunate to happen dependent in non-partisan and floors like this where we can have a candid exchange and discussion. open, thoughtful policy exchanges agree hallmark of our country and i think m. p i and its work to a france that kind of exchange for crow a particular set of things 2255 don't think there is anyone in this town were dedicated to the idea that federal immigration policy deserves a serious national treatment. that is often a fight but

she has been fighting that battle for a long time and it is, in my view, in fact, in issue that deserves great national attention. her commitment to the issues notwithstanding, all of the passion, politics and difficult progress of for the years has been an referring. doris was commissioner eight years i have only been eight assistant secretary eight months that i can already tell you i have a profound appreciation for how hard it is to have a job like that and for how much work and effort goes into it. went to thank her for her service as commissioner and steady efforts since that time to promote sound immigration policy and the debate. [applause] i want to cover three things today and talk about me and

my philosophy, a bit about the i.c.e. and what the agency really is, and a bit about what i think i use priorities ought to be. first, who is john morton? to i was born in another country and abroad son of an agreement in fact, my a mother is a lawful permanent resident of 43 years after she came to this country as a young woman and i think it is fairly safe to guess that's whatever time she has left on this earth and i hope it is a long period, she will spend it as a lawful permanent resident of the united states. my first job was a peace corps volunteer in africa. my second was the eye and s trial attorney than a federal prosecutor in the department of justice know i find myself running a major law enforcement agency whose job is to investigate

criminals and enforce the nation's immigration laws. some of you may think it is odd a peace corps volunteer board and scotland is a federal prosecutor and the head of iceberg the i don't think so. i think i represent at once to of the more important qualities that make our country great we are a nation of immigrants whose tradition of immigration have made us strong comment immigrant and firebrand we're also a nation of laws that are followed, laws that give integrity and resilience as a nation and allow us to be free and forceful as a people. we have to have them. i take great pride in the works at the irs does. we need integrity and customs and immigration systems, we need control over our borders and

investigate and prosecute drug traffickers comic counterfeiters and child at saks of vendors. we need i.c.e.. i feel fortunate each and every day that i is a career federal employee has the privilege to serve as the assistant secretary for i.c.e.. it carries a great responsibility that i take very, very seriously. irresponsibility to support the employees and responsibility to protect americans from more days harm, lawlessness and abuse and responsibility to ensure thousands of people that we interact with every day, those we arrest, detained, remove, pr osecute, are treated fairly and a top police. but it is not an easy job. i will please and displeased some

person, legislator, editorial border some advocacy group each and every day i am in this job. i venture to guess many of you here would have me do some things differently. this comes with the territory. i am not an advocate. i am a governor. with that comes a delicate duty of balancing competing interests walk, resources, discretion, common sense of for the greater good. at the end of the day, my basic approach to the job is simple. i try to make the calls on the merits. i am not a hard partisan but just trying to get it right. for the government comment trying to get the right for the country, i am trying to get right for all the people, citizens and immigrants whose life paise touches each and every day.

what it is a case? and the public imagination even within much of the government i.c.e. is sought of the immigration enforcement agency but in fact, it is a lot more than that one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the fifth federal government with of wide array of criminal and civil powers which have nothing to do with immigration. the second largest criminal investigative agency in the united states only behind the fbi. we have nearly 7,000 special agents nationwide. and in 44 countries around the world. with that size comment i.c.e. is larger than d.r. and atf and the secret service. the agents are not primarily involved in removing immigrants from the united states. they investigate and prosecute criminals record of this of nationality to

participate transnational crime like child prefer, sex traffickers and alien smugglers, counterfeiters and intellectual property thief. the same agents form a critical part of the national security ever. i.c.e. is a second contributor to the terrorism task force and the country only second to the fbi. where the principal investigators of international arms dealers and retain the brick a preference by foreign governments too illegally obtain sensitive technology and weaponry. i.c.e. plays a very significant role in civil immigration enforcement but those duties only account for half of our personnel. criminal investigations and national security work account for the other half. in addition hour duties are shared with customs and border protection and the citizenship and immigration services for goes some

powers are unique. we are the unique id tater and the prosecutor of the immigration proceedings. many powers are not. for example,, cis of blood emigrants into removal proceedings and the largest number of immigration arrested returns are carried out by the u.s. border patrol. how has a base come to be defined largely in terms of civil emigration of the enforcement? first-come a civil immigration enforcement is a national topic is listening very strong and often conflicting feelings and emotions and the media and in the public it calls for a significant national discussion and reform. a few people feel that way about criminal law enforcement. the coverage of i.c.e. and

the major newspaper such as the deere times end "washington post" almost always focuses on our detention and removal efforts. finally something as simple as immigration comes first, the customs part tends to get lost in that. let me be clear, i.c.e. always be a major player of the immigration laws. we're proud of that we don shy away from at adderall. it is basically where i am from it is my tradition and what i take very seriously. i appreciate it for this activity work we do every day to protect national security any way to put all members of all stripes in jail. my members and priorities. i have three goals.

i want to protect national security and prevent a terrorist attack on this country and secure the borders and interior from transnational crime and pursue firm, thoughtful immigration enforcement. in the interest of time and may briefly summarize the priorities for each of the so i can spend a lot to more time talking about something of a pirate a of particular importance to be witches detention reform. national security. from the moment we were created in 2003, we have a basic responsibility to protect national security and protect terrorism. while it is a responsibility that we share with many others the intelligence community, fbi and sister agencies, it is one that we act i.c.e. take very, very seriously some hour priorities in this area going forward will be to continue a very strong

participation and support of the joint terrorism task force around the country and already participate in 100 out of 106 and it will be likely we participate in all of them surely. we will it had a stop suspected of migrants that are in support of terrorism through the visa security program at the oversee embassies and also at the ports of entry. we will also strengthen our efforts to counter state-sponsored thames to obtain nuclear materials, sensitive weaponry and technology and outside the laws of the united states. we spend an enormous amount of time doing this now we will redouble the efforts to require very lengthy and a sophisticated criminal investigation. at the end of the day it is very important and important to national security we have to make sure the sensitive

technology and weaponry we have is a country is only sold and exchange in accordance with cellblock. s you may have seen the past couple of months we have been hard at work and have arrested a number of international arms dealers that route to absolutely no good on behalf of firebrand and i would like to say sabre off but that is not the case. turning to criminal investigation. with the second largest agency in the federal government and i intend to see us act does such. what investigative jurisdiction is broad we have responsibility for over 400 criminal statutes, the principal -- principal responsibility is transporting crime that is where we will put our emphasis. within the very broad criminal mandate i will place a priority on the following, first, combating

transnational crime and in particular, cross-border and organized smuggling of drugs, firearms, people, mon ey. most people probably don't realize this but the single offense we spend the most time investigating and prosecuting his not immigration related but drug trafficking across the border and through ports of entry. this effort is critical because that not only addresses of many criminal issues throughout the country but also to our neighbors mexico and canada. if we would get our relationship with mexico right to and help make scotto achieve its potential we have to get a handle on the enormous problem we have on the border with transnational crime. we have 17 task forces along the border along the southern and northern border

plus as all of this seaports and you will see if he even more in the months and years to come. this exciting things about the task force is not just paise but also atf come ida, also representatives from canada, mexico canada, mexico, colombia, ge s.a., it is important and exciting time in a law enforcement where we tried to attack these organized groups on a very sustained and aggressive scale. we will spend a lot of time focusing on and document fraud, a marriage fraud and if the goal reentry of community offenders and we have to crack down on criminals who seek to return illegally the recidivism is all but not every person who's a criminal that comes back businesses if they will commit another crime, the

statistics are that most of them will. and the law is very clear on trying to prevent that we will spend a lot of time making sure we uphold the law. third, we will spend a lot of time and international child exploitation. one of their great ills is the abuse of children by a international child pornography rings and child traffickers and child jurist. we will redouble the efforts. we just had a case in los angeles unfortunately that shows the degree to which the crimes are occurring where we investigated three united states citizens in cambodia who were molesting small cambodian children, boys and girls, all three had prior felony convictions in the state of california for job molestation and all three had done serious time in the

california penal institutions and thought to erroneously that they could get on the plane and go to cambodia and recommence were they left off. we spent a tremendous amount of time and effort and resources and work with the cambodians and a number of ngo groups and were able to make a u.s. case against these three men in cambodia and brought them back to the united states we're prosecuting pol three of them and they will go to jail. i would like to say that those are rare cases but unfortunately there is a lot of that going on and we will spend a lot of time focusing on it. it is important work. there is a reason why the united states should sit by while our citizens molest somebody else's children. finally we will spend time on intellectual property theft.

in the midst of a global recession we have to do more to protect legitimate businesses and workers from international counterfeiting and piracy rings berkeley have to pay particular attention to unfit pharmaceuticals and unfit goods. that is a major health and safety issue. cannot tell you how many cases we have an evolving counterfeit toothpaste and chemicals placed with in those tubes are not things you ultimately want to be brushing your teeth with. let's turn to the final area of immigration enforcement. the basic approach is to enforce the law. that is my job and what i intend to do. last year we removed a record 380,000 aliens from the united states. 136,000 were criminals.

i predict a further increase in this year. the hard reality is that we do not have, as an agency their resources necessary to enforce the law against every single person here illegally in the united states. instead 1/2 to set priorities as assistant secretary in a world of limited budgets that make good sense and a sound public policy. with that backdrop, here are the immigration enforcement priorities i think make good sense and sound public policy. first the removal of criminal aliens and gang members to threats of national security. we will identifier rested remove every serious criminal alien from the united states. in the past was impossible largely because we did not have the resources our presence to be in every jail in the united states we have

a two-tiered system a federal system, large penitentiaries and an even larger state system with state penitentiary's and then the largest system of all, the local jails and prisons at the county and city level. with the advent of secure communities and the placement of biometric identification in state and local jails by i.c.e., for the first time we can truly contemplate removing most aliens if they come through the criminal-justice system whether at the federal or state level and it is a sea change and enforcement and will bring about us t change the way we carry out our business. i think you'll see a very, very sharp increase in the coming years and the number of criminal aliens removed from the united states. a very quick word about

secure communities. the reason it is changing things is because we're identifying at the front end using biometric data, namely fingerprints, those people have a the criminal record and have some sort of emigration record with the department of home as security. we require to run its course but as we enroll and to implement this system and literally every single citi and county jail in the united states we are finally going to know the answer to hard questions of how many really are coming out of the nation's jails? what kind of convictions are they arrested on? with kind of conditions are they convicted for? what kind of record two they

have? where are they concentrated? of the answers will have a profound effect on the way we go about carrying out our business and will have a profound effect on the budget to requirements of the agencies of the future. we will identify a very large number of criminal offenders of those we have not reached and we will need to remove. second priority is border crossers. we are to maintain basic border control, we must abreast and remove those we encounter entering the country illegally at the border or airports burger the third priority, a fugitive spur growth criminal or noncriminal if we have incredible immigration system we have to take final orders of removal seriously. we spend over a billion dollars of taxpayer money

each and every year to obtain these orders. to pay for immigration officers and the tensions base, i.c.e. trial attorneys and department of immigration judges. if we do not enforce those orders at the expense, what is the purpose? we should call it a day and go home. the system has to have basic integrity if we put that effort and time into final quarters of removal, they have to mean something. fourth, with the focus on the employer, what is the most of it reason people come to the united states? overrunning way it is for work. and the next reason is to join family if we direct the impulse of wanting to work to ensure lawful channels we have to create a culture of compliance with then the employer community. to do that we will use a

two-pronged strategy. of a carrot and stick approach with aggressive and criminal and civil enforcement against those employers who knowingly violate the law and also assist the vast majority the overwhelming maturity of employers who want to comply with all law and practice means promoting and verify and greatly increasing the 99 inspections of fines and prosecutions as recently as 2006, vice collected a grand total of o in the way of fines. zero. we have over 6 million employers in the united states. zero. this will change i want to spend the rest of the time that i have talking to a of a signature average as assistant secretary that is detention reform.

there is no more serious effort to underrate at i.c.e. a and this. it is my personal priority and frankly, i think it will mark my time and a 10 year as assistant secretary. for the naysayers and conspiracy theorist and critics, mark my words come with this is a sustained, aggressive effort to transform immigration detention. there is no going back. point*. we are going to do this. whether people believe me or not but they're also be no doubt whether we will detain people. we will. we will continue to detain people on a grand scale. the reality is many people that we in counter are dangerous to the community if released or they pose a very serious risk of flight if they are released. they've would not show up

and honor the final quarter of removal if not to change. in the end it is not about whether or not we will detain people, of we are it is about how we detain. by two i believe we need reform? in a nutshell, here is why. we detained approximately 32,000 people per day in the united states. that translates roughly 380,000 people per year. right now we do it through a sprawling network of contract facilities that dart and even in design and and even in the kinds of conditions that they offer and in the medical services they provide. at times, obery have had over 300 detention facilities being used at once. that is entirely too many facilities to maintain good

control and oversight. moreover, as a fundamental problem that most facilities were never designed for immigration enforcement. what is our detention power? it is civil in nature and not a penal institution we detain people because if we release them they would pose a danger to somebody or run away. it is that simple we're not incarcerating and the one. what do we need to do? frankly we need to make something a far different and incremental change we need to overhaul the system and make sure this system we own and operate, at a fast expense to the taxpayer reflects our basic powers as the agency that is sold

attention, and reflect the fact we have the extremely diverse population of people that the detainee pro there is a lot of people we detain that have serious criminal records and they do need to be detained in something that looks a lot like a jail. we also detain a lot of people who pose no meaningful rest of danger to the community, they just run away. those people do not need to be detained in something that looks like gore was built to be a penal institution. we also became far too dependent on contractors this is in the making for many of many years, but we have come to a point* there is not a single federal employee in the largest

institutions overseeing the basic detention function. notch one. in my view, we went too far and we need to have a better balance. let me be clear, we will continue to rely upon contractors whether private industry or whether or not to they are local or state government, we have a lot of very important servicers from contractors but they are good at what they do and they can do better, faster and more cheaper than the government. it is a question of balance and making sure that we have come at to the end of the day, a federal employees overseeing responsibility for the system. what do i mean when i say detention reform in practical terms? i mean a much smaller network of dedicated i.c.e.

facilities designed specifically for immigration detention purposes for fourth plenty of telephones, open spaces and good conditions and no more restrictive than needed to keep people safe and secure. some of the two look like jails but some of them want. facilities near transportation hubs for the go service providers and facilities marked by professional uniformed medical care and managed by federal employees who are trained, conscientious and filled the moral imperative to treat people file and resolve issues that arise. they will arise. we run an enormous system, 380,000 people per year. people will get sick or have issues or mental illnesses or die in our custody. that is the nature of running a very, very large system. but we need to make sure that in that context we

provide the very best medical care rican with very good conditions and responsive to the issues that arise. the federal employees that are there to oversee the actual day to day detention operations. again we will rely on contractors but i want to have a federal employee who was there no largest facilities. we need those other subjects to clear transparent standards that are fully implemented and overseen. my goal is to have their detention system basically an open book. for the people that are concerned about how we do our business, there is above all of transparency, a level of access they can see what it is we're doing. i want that to be the case even for the people that are completely opposed philosophically we detain

anybody in the first place. it is good government and we have not always operated that way as an agency but i intend to see that we do that going forward. getting there will take some time. let's be frank. role was not built in one day and this is annie nervous average. it will continue long after i am assistant secretary. it took decades to get to this point* and it is a big system. we cannot solve it in the coming weeks, but we'll be able to make tremendous headway in the coming months and years and we have already done a great amount just in the eight months i have been assistant secretary. i will give you a few highlights. first, we created the office of detention policy and planning one of the first thing i did as assistant secretary. so that we had an office whose sole job was to think about getting it right and make the detention reform

work and think about how we should be doing things had not just going out saying we need another 500 beds and finding out where we could contract 500 more beds barely think about what it is we're doing in what authorities we're exercising and how to exercise that authority? we are fortunate that phyllis, who is here to my left is running at that office. those of you who know her, she is a doer and gets out there and stays focused. that is what we need and you will see a lot more change in the coming weeks and months. i formed to a advisory groups want on detention conditions and the other on health care. these two groups report to me directly as assistant secretary. the ada is a really want to hear from than many different